It's almost become trite to hear that Google has bought another company that deals in photo editing software. Yet, here we are again. Today, Vic Gundotra announced on Google+ that Nik Software, creators of the impressive Snapseed app that we saw demoed at CES this year, will be joining the Mountain View team.

While there's no indication yet just which Google product will see the benefit of this new talent, it can only mean good news. When Google purchased web-based editor Picnik, for example, the app ended up being built right into Google+. Even if it remains fairly well hidden. Given that Gundotra is making the announcement, it might be possible that the team is going to work on Google+. More likely, though, is that the group will be put to work on stock Android apps, as this is much closer to what they've been working on so far. The Gallery acquired quite a few nice editing features with ICS, so enhancing the already-robust suite would be a smart move.

As of right now, the site for Snapseed says that the Android version of the app is "coming soon." No word yet on whether that will be delayed or if Google will prefer the integration approach. Either way the company chooses to go, though, many of the features of Snapseed will be redundant. Things like brightness, saturation, and contrast adjustments are already present, for example. Though, that tilt-shift filter would be lovely.

Comments

It's not just a big deal for Android, I think they did it even more for Google+. G+ became to "THE" network for many photographers and this is one major deal to make G+ even better. Nik Software like Silver Efex is very popular.

Sven Enterlein

I remember how upset my wife was when Google acquired Picnik. She used it all the time to edit her photos. Since she's a facebook addict and doesn't like Google+ she basically lost interest (and a great piece of software). I hope Google balances the integration well because not everyone wants to sign up for many social networks. On the bright side, the more competition facebook gets the better!

dawn m. armfield

This is a huge buy in terms of the photography community, which G+ has catered to nicely. Nik also makes the Photoshop/Lightroom plug-in/stand alone software that is some of the best photography enhancement software to be found.